legal protection. >>> just hours before the first presidential debate tonight, mitt romney is raising eyebrows by getting more specific than ever about his tax plans. eamon javers is in washington with details. >> i should say the the romney campaign e-mailed me this morning to point out that this proposal that romney floated out there yesterday is not a specific proposal. just kicking around some ideas. but the idea he kicked around was an interesting one. capping tax deduction at about $17,000. that is, you would have a bucket of tax deductions, and you could fill it with your mortgage deduction or other things. so who would this help, and who would it hurt? here's the hypothetical type of guy that it would hurt. this is a hypothetical, but if you're a hot-shot young lawyer making $200,000 in new york city, you've got probably a high mortgage payment relative to your salary. you're paying high state and local taxes. if you made charitable deductions, this is a proposal that might hurt you more than it helps you. so who would benefit under this scenario that romney floated out there

. >>> welcome back. countdown mode is on. we are just over a month away from the presidential election. it's a big one. mitt romney and president obama are set to square off tonight in denver for the first of three presidential debates. you can catch it all right here live on cnbc beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern. i'll be hosting the pre and post coverage along with carl quintanilla. of course, john harwood will also be with us. he's live on the ground in denver. he's here with a preview. over to you, john. >> hey, maria. it's important to remember this election isn't over. if you look at the new polls that we came out with last night and this morning, mitt romney's only trailing by three points nationally. that's down from a five-point margin a couple weeks ago. he's 9/11 florieven in florida,. he still trails in ohio by five points. that's a big problem. he needs to win the state of ohio. that just shows he has an opportunity tonight. three other big economic issues they're going to be talking about, first of all, on taxes. mitt romney hasosed a 20% across the board rate cut for indivi

presidential hopeful mitt romney to help republicans in key house and senate races. charlie gasparino has the exclusive details on the latest obstacle, it seems, faced by the romney campaign. >> reporter: i don't think you can sort of term this as a mass exodus yet, but what we're hearing from people inside the campaign, people that raised money from the campaign is this, that in the next couple days, maybe last week or so as those negative, as those poll numbers have gotten worse for mitt romney particularly in the battleground states, what you see is the big money contributors, and particularly i hear this is happening in new york, i also hear it's broader based geographically. they're starting to hedge their bets. a lot of people thought they'd start beginning to president obama. i hear they're not doing that, but they are diverting money that was promised to mitt romney and diverting it to these house and senate races where they think they can help republicans keep the house and maybe pick up seats in the senate, maybe take the senate. ashley: so they're losing heart in the campaign.